


No Match for The Love

by calico_fiction



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anniversary, Communication, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Gift Giving, Healthy Relationships, Implied/Referenced Divorce, M/M, past Eddie/Myra, this fic has everything: angst. fluff. romance. adhd.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-23 00:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30047214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calico_fiction/pseuds/calico_fiction
Summary: Richie wakes up naturally to peace and quiet on the day of their one year anniversary, which, quite frankly, is the opposite of what he was expecting.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 42





	No Match for The Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trendsand_makebelieve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trendsand_makebelieve/gifts).



> Title from I Don't Want To Be A Bride by Vanessa Carlton

Richie wakes up naturally to peace and quiet on the day of their anniversary, which is not what he was expecting. As a kid, Eddie was the most obnoxious person Richie had ever even heard of about any kind of date. Birthdays, comic or movie release dates, certain historical dates that he thought should be more important than they were, and even the anniversary of when they beat the shit out of It. As an adult he’s not quite as bad, but he still insisted on a big to-do for Bev’s divorciversary this year and he woke Richie up early for his birthday.

So when Richie had gone to sleep last night he had expected to be woken in the wee hours by piercing dawn light as the bedroom curtains were thrown open, maybe a popper from Party City popped close enough to his face that he’d have a mark on his nose for an hour. To Eddie tearing into him for forgetting, which he would play off of even though he hadn’t forgotten at all. He had thought maybe Eddie would insist Richie make him breakfast in bed, which Richie would complain loudly about but gladly do, and then they would trade deeply sentimental gifts that undermined the whole bit.

But Richie has woken up naturally to peace and quiet, and an empty bed.

Richie sits up in bed and listens for Eddie. The shower isn’t running, and neither is the dish washer or the blender (Richie had gotten a disgustingly expensive blender that runs quieter after Eddie had moved in and Richie had discovered that he gets up at ass o’clock every morning and makes himself a kale smoothie, which is terrible in so many different ways that Richie hadn’t even bothered making fun). He can’t even hear the news podcast Eddie listens to. It’s just... quiet.

Richie gets up, reflexively maintaining the hush as he shoves on his glasses and tugs a t-shirt over his head. He pads softly out of the bedroom and into the main living space without turning on any lights or making any unnecessary noise. The picture windows at the far end of the main room illuminate Eddie’s silhouette where he sits by himself on the couch, apparently doing nothing. Just sitting.

“Eds?” Richie asks softly, still creeping forward on careful bare feet. He even avoids the creaky places, not that there are many in this place. Not like the cheap apartments Richie is still more used to. Eddie takes a deep breath and sits up straighter, looks over his shoulder and the back of the couch at Richie.

“Hey,” he says, his voice just as soft. Delicate. “Happy anniversary.” Richie smiles hesitantly.

“Happy anniversary,” he repeats. “You’re not going to tease me for forgetting?” Eddie’s eyebrows pinch, and Richie’s smile drops the same way his stomach does. Obviously something is wrong, something has been wrong, but Richie has no idea what it is or how to fix it.

“I know you didn’t forget, Rich,” Eddie sighs, and turns away.

“O-kay.” Richie draws the word out long enough to carry him around to the front of the couch, where he sits next to Eddie. He leaves a careful little space between them in case Eddie doesn’t want to be touched this morning, but comes in close enough that Eddie can close the distance without having to make a big demonstration out of it. “I hear normally that’s good. What’s wrong?” He tries to catch his eye but Eddie avoids him. It takes a long time - or at least a long time to Richie’s perception, which he knows is not always the most accurate - for Eddie to answer.

“Myra always-” he starts, and stops abruptly. He sighs again before switching to something else. “I don’t want to be a nag.”

There’s one major problem with Eddie not wanting to be a nag. The problem is that Eddie is a nag. He just is. He nags Richie about cleaning up after himself, and about his personal hygiene, and about his eating habits, and about every date and time in his Google Calendar, and about picking up toilet paper and dairy free milk, and about calling his parents regularly, and about keeping up with the Losers group chat, and about going to bed at a reasonable time, and about not drinking too much, and about taking enough time off.

“I love you,” Richie says, because he made a promise to himself that he would never lie to Eddie. 

Eddie snorts. He gives Richie a cursory glare, but his shoulders aren’t so tense.

“I love you too,” he says, faux-grudgingly. Richie tries a smile again, and Eddie’s mouth twitches at him a little. Progress. Eddie reaches out and pulls Richie in, and Richie goes gladly. Eddie arranges them so that Richie is wrapped all around him and Eddie’s face is mashed into Richie’s neck. He gives Richie a little kiss there, and Richie squeezes him as his smile grows. His mom used to say he was like a flower, shower him in affection and he’ll bloom. It’s completely true.

Eddie’s little kisses seem to be more for his own benefit than Richie’s this morning, though. After a half a dozen more chaste presses of his lips to Richie’s pulse, he seems to gather himself up, steel his courage and gird his loins and all that. Richie can’t help but tense a little in response, but he doesn’t pull away.

“I need you to tell me what you got me,” Eddie mumbles. His hands curl into Richie’s t-shirt and pull, as if Richie could get any closer.

“It’s supposed to be a surprise,” Richie says, by rote. Eddie shakes his head and presses himself so hard into Richie’s body that it almost hurts.

“There’s something I can’t accept, Richie,” he explains. The words sound like they almost hurt too. “I need you to tell me what you got.” Richie’s mind races too fast for him to catch any of his thoughts, trying to figure out what Eddie couldn’t take from him when he would be better for giving Eddie absolutely anything.

“A puppy?” Richie’s voice ticks up at the end, turning it into a stressed question. But Eddie laughs, sudden and bright, and goes limp in Richie’s arms.

“Okay,” he breathes. “A puppy. Okay. That’s okay.”

“And a little, like a,” Richie adds, in the effort of full disclosure. “It’s called a worry stone, and it’s got a little, you know, thing in it so you can put it on a keychain or whatever. And it has our initials carved on the back in my handwriting.”

“Ugh,” Eddie says. “Your handwriting is awful.” But he pulls back enough for Richie to see his smile and the light in his eyes.

“What was...?” Richie wonders, gone quiet again with nerves. “Just so I know.” He can’t imagine anything that he wouldn’t give Eddie, and he can’t bear the thought that there’s something he could do that would hurt Eddie that he doesn’t even know about. Something he thinks is good that is actually bad. The phrase _irreconcilable differences_ echoes in the back of his mind like a clown demon in the pipes of his psyche.

Eddie pulls a little further away, dropping his gaze to his knees before peering at Richie from the corner of his eyes. He almost looks ashamed. What the fuck.

“A ring?” he answers in a stressed question to match Richie’s. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and looks away again. Richie won’t forget the look on his face that he caught just a glimpse of any time soon. “I can’t. I can’t get married again, Rich. It’s not you!” he reassures, looking up again wide-eyed and semi-frantic. Richie grabs his shaking hands out of the air and holds them. “It’s not you, I know you’d- I just...”

“Ed, I get it,” Richie interrupts. He’s so awash with relief it’s a struggle not to laugh. “I wasn’t gonna ever ask you, dude.” Richie hadn’t ever planned to ask _anyone_. He might even have said no if Eddie asked, now that he thinks of it - because he’d never considered it before.

“Never?” Eddie repeats, cautiously meeting Richie’s eyes again. His frenetic energy banks, still there but lying in wait. They’ll have to find some way to get it all out later, but Richie always has plenty of ideas about that. For now, he just grins and shrugs.

“It’s not for everyone,” he says, and then plants an unnecessarily wet kiss on Eddie’s cheek just to hear him squeal about it.

They spend the day making out lazily and arguing over what to name Eddie’s puppy. They go to a nice restaurant, showing up and using Richie’s name and money in place of a reservation, because they suck and that’s part of the experience. They have food that Richie can’t pronounce and wine that he can’t appreciate, and then they go home and make love like the sentimental old men that they are.

Richie wakes to his alarm in the morning, and turns it off quickly so that he can have the pleasure of waking Eddie up himself.

“Rise and shine, loverboy!” he crows like a rooster as he throws open the bedroom curtains and lets the dawn light in. Eddie whines, and Richie laughs.

Richie makes a breakfast spread of seasonal fruit, waffles, and a gourmet cappuccino as noisily as possible, and when he pauses and listens closely he can hear Eddie cursing him out conversationally from the bedroom. When the food is done he arranges it artfully on a lap tray, and he kicks the bedroom door open hard enough to hit the wall when he brings it in. Eddie curses him louder, hiding underneath the covers so that Richie can’t see the grin he can hear in his voice. He sets the tray of food carefully on Eddie’s bedside table, so that he can take a running leap and land right on Eddie knees first.

“ _Ow_ , fuck you!” Eddie yelps, throwing the covers back so that he can grab Richie by the hair and wrestle him, laughing, onto his back.

“Happy anniversary, take two, Spaghetti Man!” Richie says gleefully.

“Fuck you,” Eddie repeats. “I have a hangover and you’re annoying me.”

“Please,” Richie snorts. “You had, like, a glass and a half of gajillion dollar wine. You didn’t even get tipsy.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie says again, but then he leans down and kisses Richie, morning breath and all. “Where’s my fucking puppy.”

They pick the puppy up after breakfast. She’s a very confused puppy who eventually grows into a confused dog, because they never do come to an agreement on her name.


End file.
